


2:54 PM

by doomingdawn



Category: Original Work
Genre: Infidelity, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 02:42:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9528350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomingdawn/pseuds/doomingdawn
Summary: "It ain't no big thing to wait for the bell to ring."





	

That was the time he was going to meet his mistress: 2:54 PM. If only I hadn’t been handed the phone by a maid; if only I hadn’t pretended to be a personal assistant. And all the feminine voice uttered was 2:54 PM, and that’s all it took. I knew immediately. I hung up immediately. I wasn’t foolish, not like everyone else. I knew this wasn’t her fault. Even if she knew, even if she knew, she wasn’t worth my breath. My time. My fist. A homewrecker is a sadly esteemed vortex. He is the liar. He is the cheater. All I had to tell him was 2:54 PM, and he already knew. What a beautiful ritual. 2:54 PM. He didn’t even deny it, but I won’t praise a man for breathing. His face deserved a bullet. I saw the way he looked. He wasn’t even sad, not devastated that he hurt me. He went into survival mode. He couldn’t even be bothered to beg; he was only mad that he got caught, and somehow, I was just an illusion regardless. Because he didn’t beg for forgiveness, he just left. Just like that, gone. Some substantial amount of time, wasted.

They say that thinking about cheating points to lacking self-esteem. Maybe you don’t trust someone, maybe you’re feeling neglected. Maybe you’re just being cheated on. Or maybe you’re assuming things, you’re being presumptuous or paranoid. That’s me. I’m a man of fiction, a negative fantasy. How many ways can I describe a dreadful dream? I’m just a dreamer, that’s all. I’m not capable of much more. Nothing more than sweet serenity, bubblegum pink, shaking limbs and an upset stomach. My hair falls out. My stomach turns inside out. I start seeing things, hearing sounds. My throat gets sore, and I tic, tic like a ticking time bomb. It’s like a minuscule yell, a desperate scream in the back of my throat, scraping my tonsils. My tonsils like a wrecking ball. A broken heart crawling back from the dead. It wants to be free. It wants to see heaven. But I can’t open my mouth long enough to let it go. I can’t be bothered. And this is all my fault, because it’s a lot to expect someone to stand by you when you aren’t perfect. I was never enough, and to make it all worse, I knew that. I dwelled on that. 

And when I wake up, and it was all a dream, I don’t feel any better. Because I felt it, felt it just like it was real life. Felt my vulnerabilities. Felt the pain of being betrayed. Maybe I’m being unfaithful to myself. I’m not taking care of myself. I’m not giving credit where credit is due. I stress myself out, I underestimate myself, and I convince myself that I wouldn’t be half as successful as I honestly am if I wasn’t so hard on myself. That’s just how I was raised, even if it’s a harsh lie. A hard lie, blunt and bolded at the end. It’s just not true. I could be cocky, but people despise self-esteem, so they claim that confidence is arrogance and arrogance is nothing, nothing like confidence. No. Confidence is calm, cool, collected. That’s who you oughta be. That’s who I wanna be. I wanna be bubbly but relaxed. I wanna be intelligent and humble. I want to chill and do everything. I want to listen to old music and conform to other stereotypes, more expectations. I want to change archetypes. I want a paradigm shift. I want my reckoning. It’s time.

I want him to stop singing about other people. I want the world for myself. But he sings for her, too. An unlonely mistress. I am not the only jester in this show. I am not the only one acting beside my own honesty. We’re both carcasses, expectations, side by side. Shoulder to shoulder. And where can love sit in a rift? A valley with no bottom, where does the water gather? How can I drown, how can I die an honest death when I never see it coming? When it hits me, I’ll know. I’ll realize, and I’ll regret. None of this was ever real. We’re all playing a part, playing a game. I love his character and he loves mine and that’s why we’ll fall out of love. And I’ll pretend to love his annoying interests because I nitpick and I’ve been socialized as hypercritical and evil and I police, and he’ll help me when it gets dark but he’ll get tired of it. Not because he hates it but because I’m making it obvious. I’m manic and I’m a mirror. I’m breaking the fourth wall. He wants to scream, too. He wants to explode; to let it all out, to be honest. He wants to cry, to ask me every five seconds, where I am and what I’m doing. He wants to bind my hands, read my mind. He wants to call anyone names and say what he wants. That’s what we all want.

I just want him to love me. Only me. He can love his family. He can love his friends. I am very lenient. But I want him to stop singing about other people. Because I did. And if I do something, then he has to. That’s freedom. That’s equality. That’s not freedom, but it’s only fair. It’s worth it. It’s nice. But those are his experiences. That’s his life. And I have a life, too. Why is that so hard for all of us to understand? And there are the guys who say they don’t care, but they do. No one is chill. And if they are, they’ll break your heart. They’ll envy your emotional freedom, because they just want to scream and let it out too. He’s such an honest man, and I love him. He’s creative and smart, but I don’t know if he’s there yet. I don’t know if he’s wild enough. I don’t know if he’s attuned to the chaos. I ask him, and he agrees, and he asks me, pleads. Make me work. Make us work. You’re the one. You’re the only one who makes me feel this way. Let’s make it work, no matter what. Like a marriage. A real marriage, of two people. But I don’t know if he’s capable of that. I don’t know if he’s free enough. Free enough of freedom. Of what freedom looks like; what he thinks it looks like, what they think it looks alike. What the people want.

Real love isn’t a burning drive, but it’s the solidest of grounds. It is late night content, not morning fires.


End file.
